Until a couple of days ago, I considered myself well informed. I believed I could frame today's issues as well as anyone. With that in mind, my intention was to write a piece about The Fourth of July, presenting the original, remarking on the degree to which this country, public and private, has degraded from the values and ethics implied in the document, etc.

That's what I was going to do. But, when I searched for a replica of the original Declaration of Independence, gosh gee-whoa!, I found - well, A Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace written by a John Berry Parlow - former lyricist for the Grateful Dead. My life was changed forever! (Sorry for not being there earlier guys.) I thought I had understood quite a bit about freedom of speech. Boy, was I wrong!

I watched the hearings some years back when Frank Zappa and John Denver received top billing, and the camera shots ping-ponged between their statements and Tipper Gore's reactions. I heard Mr. Zappa offer several reasonable solutions to what he described as an issue brought forth solely by "Washington wives." He pointed out that our schools could better support music appreciation programs to expose our children to a greater variety of musical genres; he suggested the availability of the lyrics for parental perusal, thereby placing the matter squarely on the shoulders of the parents--where it belongs; finally, he pointed out that the life span of offensive material is lengthened by efforts to censor, especially government efforts. When asked if he thought there was any age at which a child should not be exposed to "indecent material," he speculated somewhere up to the age of 7 or 8 years old.

What's an old coot like him know, eh? He made records, not CD's. There was no cyberspace of which to speak--at least not a public place for every pseudo-Ivy League thinker to post their opinions. In all of his more than 50 recordings, not once did he present to us a Declaration of Independence. Not once! In short, he was no John Perry Barlow.

But we have Mr. Barlow's liberating voice today. I have been converted.

Today, pornography takes up more than fifty percent of the bandwidth on the Internet, including bestiality, blatant exploitations of men and women, overt references to pedophilia, and, of course, what is termed "soft porn." I want to align with a cause that would do right by our Founding Fathers. I have since experienced recurring fantasies of Thomas Jefferson extending his hand to me, bellowing, "You tell ‘em!"

So, in the spirit of free speech, bolstered by my recent enlightenment, I would like to extend to my new comrades, my brothers and sisters in "great and gathering conversation," my fellow Loyalists, a warm and genuine, "Fuck you."

My wife says, "Fuck you", too. My daughter, barely 8 months old, with any luck, will tell you to "fuck off" when she can speak. (Keep your fingers crossed.)

Further, I propose the rearrangement of the alphabet for the planned enlightenment of all future generations. From this day forward we shall sing the alphabet song thus: A, B, C, D, E, F, U, C, K, etc.

I propose the mandated use of profanity, punishable by endless television viewing. This site, for example, could be The Fucking Yeetle Box. We could rename your Declaration to A Fucking Declaration of the Independence of Fucking Cyberspace. Say it boldly; say it with patriotic pride. For Cyberspace is not a place, right? It's a collection of minds, right?

Every man, woman, and child should rise up and shout in one great voice: "FUCK YOU!" (Or words to that effect.)

Given 1000 megahertz of processing power and 128 troglodytes of memory, we can win this war. I say, my fellow freedom fighters, there is no more grave an issue than this one: neither hunger, nor child abuse and neglect, nor homelessness, nor the patients abuses of managed care, nor inner city unemployment, nor racial tension, nor our faltering environment, nor the "insolence of law" are as erosive of our individual entitlements as the implementation of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

Once more for my country: "Fuck you!"

(Gosh, that felt good.)

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